The Thread Was There All Along

Over the last few months, as I’ve been writing these stories, something unexpected keeps happening. I’ll be halfway through writing one story when another memory suddenly pops into my head.

First it was the hive above the playground when I was a little girl. Then it was the Bee Man. Then I remembered the little bee pin I used to wear back in my MLM days because we were always talking about being “busy as a bee.” I often thought of my home as my hive, and I was the queen bee. At the time, it was just a cute saying. Or so I thought. I must have used it a lot though as one boss I had even had business cards made for me and my title was Queen Bee. I remembered doodling bees in the margins of my papers in school even. Then I remembered the last time I got stung before I ever became a beekeeper. Then I remembered telling people, for years, that someday I’d like one hive in my garden. That seemed like enough.

Every time another memory surfaced, I found myself wondering the same thing.

By themselves, none of those memories seemed particularly important.

But together, they started to feel like something more.

The funny thing about memories is…

It isn’t just bees.

Gardening has been quietly following me my whole life too. My dad always had a garden. Sometimes it was a big one. Sometimes it was just a tomato plant, a cucumber, and a squash.

It didn’t really matter. He grew something. He still grows something. 

When I moved into an apartment as a young adult, I didn’t have much space, so I planted a tomato on my patio and some herbs on my windowsill. It never even occurred to me not to. It almost feels wrong not to plant something in the spring. These days, we have a fairly large garden.

Even during the busiest seasons of my life, there was almost always something growing somewhere.

Looking back now…

I wonder if the garden and the bees were ever separate stories.

Maybe they’ve always belonged together. After all, a garden needs pollinators to thrive.

If you had told twenty-five-year-old me that someday I’d enroll in the UC Davis Master Beekeeper Program, I probably would have wrinkled up my nose and laughed. “Really?” At that point I had twin babies, and life was busy. Beekeeping wasn’t even on my radar.

But maybe that’s how these things work.

There are certain interests that just keep finding us.

Not because we’re obsessed with them.

Not because we plan our lives around them.

They just keep showing up.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Like an old friend. As if they’re patiently waiting for us to notice.

For me, it’s bees.

It’s gardening.

It’s sitting down at a piano.

It’s learning Spanish……or attempting to, if you ask anyone who knows me well - no, I still can’t speak it.

None of those things have ever

been at the center of my life.

Sometimes years go by.

Life gets busy.

Other priorities take over.

But somehow they always find their way back.

I don’t really know how to explain that.

I just know they’re part of who I am.

Whether I understand them or not.

Whether I’m struggling with them or not.

They’re woven into my story.

I’ve been asked why I became interested in bees.

Honestly, I’m not sure I ever decided to. Maybe that’s why becoming a beekeeper felt less like starting something new……and more like coming back to something that had quietly been waiting for me all along.

Do I think bees were meant to be part of my life?

Maybe. Or maybe I’ve simply lived long enough to look backward and finally see the thread connecting all those little moments.

I honestly think it’s a little bit of both.

And it makes me wonder…

What thread has been quietly running through your own life?

Maybe it isn’t bees.

Maybe it’s music.

Maybe it’s gardening.

Maybe it’s painting.

Maybe it’s something you loved as a child that life pushed aside for a while.

Whatever it is…

I hope you find your way back to it.

Because sometimes, the things that stay with us the longest, aren’t new passions at all.

They’re old ones, they’ve been there longer than we realized.

 Quietly waiting for us to come home.

Thank you for spending a little time in the hive today.

Until next time,

~ Tracy 🐝